These Old Shoes
by Lennelle
Summary: Sam. Pneumonia. Camp Chitaqua.
And here's _another_ Sam Birthday comment fic meme from ohsam, I encourage you to go check it out on Livejournal, there's plenty of great prompts being filled! The prompt for this one was: _Sam. Pneumonia. Camp Chitaqua._

No fluff or happiness to be found here, beware of super extra sadness.

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It's been one of the harshest winters they've had in years, the world seemed to drop a few degrees once Satan slipped into Sammy like a well-worn pair of shoes. But the devil's gone now, has been gone for a long time, leaving Sam shivering and incoherent in the middle of a highway. He was still wearing that white suit by the time he stumbled into Dean several months later, but the fabric was stained and torn, and so was Sam's mind, it seemed.

Dean watches the snow come down outside, everyone is huddled away in their cabins, the crops are dead and they've been living on too little for too long. It's a winter that's determined to take someone's life, one that bites and burns and freezes.

Sam shudders beside him, glassy eyes flicking about lazily. His breath is moving in and out slowly, rasping like he's dragging air into his lungs through a grater. Dean wrings out a cloth and dabs it over Sam's sweat-slicked brow. Sam jolts and shivers under it, yelping like it sears his skin.

In the corner, Cas kicks his feet up onto a stool and lets out a puff of smoke, twiddling his joint between his fingers. Dean ignores him, stares down at Sam who's looking intently at an empty corner. It's hard to believe that this sick, starving, wreck of a man was the one who destroyed the world.

It's hard to believe that this person, a man who's been scraped apart from the inside so there's only mostly shell left, is Dean's brother.

Sam whimpers and Dean wishes he could hate him.

"I wish I could do something," Cas says, and Dean wonders if he still has a little bit of grace left in him, the way he seems to sense things like no one else can. Cas has a habit of saying depressing and pointless things and a lot of the time he whines about how much he misses his wings, but he spends even more of his time shutting himself up with any narcotics he can get his hands on.

"Yeah, well, you can't," Dean snaps. The damp cloth is warm again so he dips it in a bucket Cas had filled with melted snow and wrings it out again to place on Sam's forehead. The fire burns beside them, even still, Dean can see his breath latch onto the frigid air.

"Dean, Dean," Sam calls, looking around like Dean isn't right there in front of him.

"I'm here, Sam," Dean answers. He doesn't call him Sammy any more, he hasn't in a long time.

"He's back," Sam says, voice tight with fear, "He's come back for me!"

"He's long gone, Sam," Dean reminds him, he tries to be patient with him but patience is a virtue he never really had, he takes a deep breath and softens his voice, "He's not coming back. Even if he is, you can say no."

He says that last part a little bitingly. Maybe he's rubbing Sam's mistakes in his face, just a little.

"I can feel him, Dean," Sam whispers, a tear leaks out of the corner of his eye, "It's so cold, Dean. He left the cold inside me."

Dean swallows and looks away, right over to Cas who's staring at Sam with the most pitiful expression. He meets Dean's eye with something that looks much the same.

"He's come back," Sam says, moving restlessly, his breaths rasp in and out, "He's here! He brought the cold!"

"Be quiet, Sam," Dean orders. He just wants Sam to stop talking.

"He's here, he's here, he's here," Sam keeps saying the same thing over and over like a broken record.

He's trying to get up off the cot but Dean holds him still, which isn't difficult because Sam's so weak. He remembers the day he found Sam, the kid was rummaging around in the forest, looking for food, his fingers and mouth were stained red with wild berries. Dean had pulled a gun on him, all he could see was the white suit, Satan's face, blood. But Sam had cried like a frightened animal, fallen to his knees and begged for mercy, begged for death, begged for people who had been dead a long time.

The Devil hadn't left much of Sam behind, just enough of his sanity to keep him on two feet.

That was almost a year ago. Now, Sam's sick, sicker than usual, and Dean thinks it would be a mercy for the disease to take him.

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Told ya it was sad. Reviews are lovely though!


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